


And the Texaco Beacon Burns On

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [72]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Diners, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara’s Diner, the truck stop at the end of the cosmic line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Texaco Beacon Burns On

**Author's Note:**

> for becomesongs, who prompted: whouffaldi deity au, mythology of your choice or make one up that's fine too

Clara’s Diner, the truck stop at the end of the cosmic line.

They all come here. The forgotten, the fading. Two-bit gods clocked out after a thankless shift, finding whatever solace they can in a cup of coffee, hashbrowns. Eggs over easy. Some old sad song played on the jukebox, the quarter slid in and the wheel turned.

The god of small change, facing their impending obsolescence, is more than happy to spread their domain around. Results in a lot of Sinatra.

Today, though, someone in the back corner is dumping all his spare change into Van Halen. “Pretty Woman” twice in a row. “Jump”, “I’ll Wait”. “Pretty Woman” again. Clara’s other customers are starting to grumble.

She watches him, the Van Halen one, out of the corner of her eye. He’s been here before. Quiet, keeps mostly to himself. She’s had to break up a few arguments involving him. The keeper of petty retorts, maybe. He’s never said much about himself but she has a sense, built up, that he knows more about her than she’d like.

Me brushes deliberately past her, towards the register, elbow out and digging in. “Stop him, please.”

Me isn’t a god, but is old enough to qualify on a technicality. She doesn’t like to talk about it. Something had happened, once. Short-tempered and short in general - though Clara can’t throw stones - a good business partner, despite her brusqueness.

“D'you know who he is?”

“Does it matter? No. What matters is I’m one more Van Halen song away from shutting this place down.”

Clara rolls her eyes. The de-facto peace-keeper once again. Okay, fine. She scoots out from behind the counter and heads towards Mr Terrible Taste in Music.

“Play that song again and my co-worker will kill you,” she says.

“It’s a good song.” He leans back in the booth. Insolent, almost, like a little boy.

But he’s old, she can feel it. Impossibly so. Physically maybe mid-50s but, oh, the centuries he’s carrying around. Millennia. One of the originals.

She’s not intimidated. She’s met members of the old guard before, she’s not impressed. But, maybe, a little drawn in. This cosmic ancient thing playing “Pretty Woman” for the fourth time.

“There’s a whole world,” she says. “Of 1980’s pop metal. For the love of all that is holy, please branch out. Or, like I said, my co-worker’s gonna kill you. Not to mention everyone else. You realize that woman over there is in charge of poetic justice?”

Poetic Justice waves, a look of anticipation on her face.

“You’re not careful,” Clara continues. “You might wind up dead in the alleyway, an eight-track cassette shoved down your throat.”

The guy shrugged, then leaned towards the jukebox. Quarter inserted, the knob turned. AC-DC blaring tinnily through the speakers.

“Thanks,” she said, then turned away, leaving him to his mediocre 80s top-40.

  


  


He’s back next Wednesday, Mr. Van Halen. No music this time. Just hunched shoulders and way, way too much jam on his toast.

“Who d'you think he is?” Clara asks Me again.

“Do I look like I care? If I do, my sincerest apologies.” Me slams the lid shut on the coffee-maker, flicks the switch.

“Aren’t you curious? I mean, all the other regulars, we know. Rubber Bands, Missing the Train by a Minute.” She gestures around the diner. “Bungled Apologies.”

Bungled Apologies cringes, sliding towards the counter top. “It - fuck - I just meant for. You know?” His fork trembling.

“No worries, B.A.” Clara shoots him a smile, trying to project a general air of forgiveness.

It’s what so many of them want, honestly. Regardless of who they are. Just forgiveness. Acceptance. Even if, coming from a stranger, it’s hopelessly hollow.

Mr. Van Halen comes up to pay, his usual fistful of spare change and strange bills. Crumpled and warm, the dirt of the ages on them. Like it is all over him.

“I’m trying to settle a bet,” she says, lying. Ringing him up on the till. “With my friend, here. She thinks you’re Mid-Life Crisis.”

He huffs out a laugh. “And you?”

“I think you’re something bigger than that.” She hands him his change, their fingers brushing. She feels a spark of something run between them.

“I was, once. Now, honestly. God of the Mid-Life Crisis, that works as well as anything.”

There’s a pause, heavy with - something, she can’t lay her finger on it. Something happening here. The weight of the world wrapping around them.

She grins brightly and hands him his receipt. “See you around, Mr. Whatever.”

  


  


“Doctor,” he corrects, a week later.

“Sorry?” It’s late, nearly closing time. She’s wiping tables down.

“Doctor Whatever. But without the ‘whatever’. Just ‘Doctor’.”

He’s playing David Bowie, this time. “Life on Mars” echoing out between them.

“Plasters? Paper-cuts?” She pauses, takes a leap. “Watching a loved one die?” He’s certainly got the face for it. Something melancholy, haggard in him. A sense of loss.

“Close,” he says tightly. “But no cigar.”

He’s staring at her. Too closely, too intensely. He knows what she’s not saying.

“So who are you, then?” he asks. “Clara, of Clara’s Diner. You’re not a waitress, not a cook. You’re one of us.”

“I’m just me,” she says quickly. Too quickly. The rag clenched in her hand.

“Of course you’re you. It’s very difficult to be anyone other than yourself. Believe me, I’ve tried. So what is it. Mercy? Waffles? 2 AM in a mostly empty diner, sweeping up the ends of the day? The witching hour?” He looks inordinately pleased with himself. Half-wrong but right enough, he knows. He _knows_.

“Currently? I’m the goddess of you leaving, because we closed twenty minutes ago.” Still wiping the table down, though it’s already as clean as it’s gonna get.

He holds his hands up, a gesture of surrender. Then rummages around his pockets, comes up with ten different time zones, locations’ worth of money. Pours it out onto the table in front of him, and then leaves, not looking back.

  


  


She catches him, Doctor just the Doctor not Doctor Whatever, outside the diner, filling up the petrol tank in his Studebaker.

“Regret? Is that it?” She doesn’t really expect him to answer.

And he doesn’t answer, just clicks the cap home, puts the nozzle back in the designated holder. Puts a pair of sunglasses on, runs his hand through his hair. “And you? Frustrated ambition?”

“Not even close.”

He stares at her, eyes hidden behind the tinted sunglasses, but she knows. She can feel it. “What are you?” she asked again. Like a mantra, by now. What are you, who are you, what is this.

“If I said Time,” he says softly. Voice half-lost in the noise of the wind. “Would you believe me?”

She could respond. She assumes she doesn’t have to. Instead, she crosses the gravel between them, rocks crunching under her feet. Takes his lapels in her hands, the dusty well-worn cotton, and pulls him down. Presses her lips against his.

That spark, again. Something slotting into place and something terribly, unspeakably wrong. Whatever he is, they shouldn’t be doing this. The world shudders around them, and he shudders beneath her. Knees bent, neck bared. The world flinching away. And something, something. Something coming home.

“I’m headed to Tulsa,” he says, when he manages to pull free from her. Eyes wide, eyebrows furrowed. A manic, desperate look. Like a man about to step off a cliff. “Wouldn’t mind some company.”

“Got the diner to look after,” she says. Wipes her mouth, settles back down onto her heels. “And all the rest of your kind.”

“Yeah, yeah. Figured.” He opens the driver-side door, slides in behind the wheel.

She closes the door for him, motions for him to roll the window down. “I might be persuaded to change my mind. Just not today, there’s a convention in town. But next time, maybe.”

“Next time,” he says. Key turned in the ignition, one last up-down glance before he pulls away, gravel spitting off from the tires.

She watches him go, eyes shaded against the setting sun. The duct-tape-and-wishful-thinking Studebaker disappearing around the horizon.


End file.
